VMware Workstation 3.2Features | Documentation | Knowledge Base | Discussion Forums You can install Windows XP Home Edition or Professional in a virtual machine using the corresponding Windows XP distribution CD. Note: To use SCSI disks in a Windows XP virtual machine, you need a special SCSI driver available from the download section of the VMware Web site at www.vmware.com/download. Follow the instructions on the Web site to use the driver with a fresh installation of Windows XP. If you have a virtual machine with a SCSI virtual disk and a Windows 9x, Windows Me, Windows NT or Windows 2000 guest operating system and want to upgrade it to Windows XP, install the new SCSI driver before upgrading the operating system. If you want to run Windows XP Home Edition or Professional in a VMware Workstation virtual machine, be sure you have a full installation CD for the operating system. Before installing the operating system, be sure that you have already created a new virtual machine and configured it using the VMware Workstation New Virtual Machine Wizard (on Windows hosts) or Configuration Wizard (on Linux hosts). Make sure you selected Windows XP as your guest operating system. Now, you're ready to install Windows XP Home Edition or Professional.
Be sure to install VMware Tools in your guest operating system. For details on installing VMware Tools, see Installing VMware Tools. Windows XP does not automatically detect and install drivers for ISA sound cards, such as the Creative Labs Sound Blaster emulated in a virtual machine. For details on installing the driver for the virtual machine's sound card, see Sound in a Windows XP or Windows .NET Server Guest. The Microsoft Windows XP product activation feature creates a numerical key based on the virtual hardware in the virtual machine where it is installed. Changes in the configuration of the virtual machine may require you to reactivate the operating system. There are some steps you can take to minimize the number of significant changes.
For more details on Windows XP product activation, see the Microsoft Web site. On a Linux host with an XFree86 3.x X server, it is best not to run a screen saver in the guest operating system. Guest screen savers that demand a lot of processing power can cause the X server on the host to freeze. The hibernation feature is not supported in this release. Instead of using the guest operating system's hibernate feature, suspend the virtual machine by clicking Suspend on the VMware Workstation toolbar. |